Chances are the CEO of the company you work for makes quite a bit more than you do. Perhaps you’ve never thought that was a problem. Probably because it’s quite common.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average American worker makes $58,000 a year. The average CEO makes about 271 times that much.

Once upon a time, Dan Price, the Co-Founder and CEO of Gravity Payments, made $1.1 million. Meanwhile, some of his employees were making $30,000. One of those employees was a woman named Rosita. He explained how talking to Rosita led to his decision to take a huge pay cut in order to increase the minimum salary to $70,000.

She was hiding the McD’s handbook and thought her 2nd job would get her fired. What kind of culture had I created? Scarcity and fear.Rosita is a college grad but was making $30k a year.She’d leave our job at 5 and secretly work 5:30-11 every weeknight at McD’s for 1.5 years.

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) July 29, 2021

She came back and said she needed a $10k raise to quit the 2nd job. I said OK if she took on some extra duties.She quit the McD’s job, moved out of her crappy apartment and used the free time to see her friends more. As her mental health improved, so did her work performance.

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) July 29, 2021

Rosita is now our director of sales and was interviewed about her experiences by star author @AdamMGrant https://t.co/wAnaz6H0iyHere we are together on the Kelly Clarkson show where she shared her story: pic.twitter.com/0Xl0vNk2F0

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) July 29, 2021

Listening to his employees has had long term effects. During the pandemic, his employees actually chose to take pay cuts to prevent any employees from being laid off.

When the pandemic hit, our revenue sunk. We needed mass layoffs. I brought the details to our 200 employees. They offered to take voluntary pay cuts to save everyone’s job.They helped us recover. We later paid them back the lost wages & gave small raiseshttps://t.co/tWXleaHaA4

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) July 29, 2021

Price is humble about his decision to listen to his employees and take a pay cut. He explains that he only looks good in comparison to other CEOs.

I’m still learning to be a better boss and only look “good” when compared to other CEOs because the bar is so depressingly low.Listen to your employees, trust them, reward them. They are responsible for a company’s success – not CEOs.

— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) July 29, 2021

Price’s employees are thankful to work for such a caring boss, and they have shown him their appreciation in big ways, like pooling their money to buy him a Tesla.

 

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A post shared by Dan Price CEO Gravity Payments (@danpriceseattle)

Do you think more CEOs should voluntarily take pay cuts so they can afford to pay their employees more?